CVE-2025-68161 Apache Log4j Core: Missing TLS hostname verification in Socket appender

Products

• CA Harvest Software Change Manager

Issue/Introduction

During a vulnerability scan the following vulnerability was detected based on file versions:

Vulnerability CVE-2025-68161

Severity: moderate

Affected versions:

- Apache Log4j Core (org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core) 2.0-beta9 before 2.25.3

Description:

The Socket Appender in Apache Log4j Core versions 2.0-beta9 through 2.25.2 does not perform TLS hostname verification of the peer certificate, even when the verifyHostName https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/appenders/network.html#SslConfiguration-attr-verifyHostName configuration attribute or the log4j2.sslVerifyHostName https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/systemproperties.html#log4j2.sslVerifyHostName system property is set to true.

This issue may allow a man-in-the-middle attacker to intercept or redirect log traffic under the following conditions:

* The attacker is able to intercept or redirect network traffic between the client and the log receiver.
* The attacker can present a server certificate issued by a certification authority trusted by the Socket Appender’s configured trust store (or by the default Java trust store if no custom trust store is configured).

Users are advised to upgrade to Apache Log4j Core version 2.25.3, which addresses this issue.

As an alternative mitigation, the Socket Appender may be configured to use a private or restricted trust root to limit the set of trusted certificates.

Source: CVE-2025-68161 via Apache

Affected File

C:\Users\<USER>\.eclipse\com.ca.harvest.workbench.workbenchProduct_14.5.0.45_1820817221_win32_win32_x86_64\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\4\0\.cp\log4j-core-2.17.2.jar

Environment

Harvest 14.5.x

Resolution

Note that vulnerability scanners flag vulnerabilities based on file versions only and not specific functionalities.

It is possible that a vulnerability can be found in a file but the product may not use the vulnerable functionality.

For this vulnerability, Harvest is NOT AFFECTED.

The Socket Appender component is not configured or used in Harvest

Harvest utilizes local console logging only and as a result there is no remote log transmission

The vulnerable code path is never executed in Harvest

Based on these details, this vulnerability can be safely ignored